Tempo Run in the Middle of Nowhere

I mentioned 2 posts ago that I was hoping to get in a "Henry-free" run this past weekend. I had ran 49 miles STRAIGHT with Henry, and I wanted to break that! (Not that I don't love running with the guy - it was just so I remembered how to run withOUT a stroller!) And Sunday morning when Pharmie was trying to get Henry to take a little nap at Grandpa and Grandma's, I snuck out for a run. (When I got back, Henry was playing with Grandpa! Awesome!)

I warmed up for about a mile, and then did 5 HARD TEMPO miles in the middle of nowhere in rural southern Minnesota. Here was my out-and-back route:

Yes, that map is turned on it's side. It's to show you JUST how "open" that run was. There was little around.

Except for the wind.

Unless you've really experienced "in-the-middle-of-nowhere WIND," you don't know what I'm talking about. Wind is much different in the city: it's always there, always at the tree-tops, but you just hit pockets of "actual wind." In the country, it just BLOWS. And if it's windy, it's ALWAYS THERE.

I ran my first 0.5 mile with a side wind, and then turned DIRECTLY into the wind for the next 2 miles. It was rough. I took 0.5 mile splits because there are line fences between the fields every 0.25 or 0.5 miles. I hit the turn-around completely hashed. Here are my splits on the way out:

Mile 0 - 2.5: 3:03, 3:10, 3:11, 3:19, 3:12 = 15:57 (6:22.8 / mile average)

That got rough. My 3:19 half mile was slower than my half marathon pace from 2.5 months ago. Crap. I was REALLY hoping to go hard with the wind at the turn-around, but it didn't "push" me as much as I had hoped. Here's what I ran on the way back:

Mile 2.5 - 5: 2:59, 2:59, 2:53, 2:55, 2:58 = 14:46 (5:54.4 / mile average)

30:43 total for 5 miles (6:08.60 / mile average)

Here's a photo from a post about 2 years ago when I did 2 x 2 mile intervals on that same stretch of road. Here's a slightly foggy version of my first and last half mile:

(And the corn hasn't been planted yet, so there's nothing in the fields. Even MORE room for wind.)

So I'm looking at a hard workout sometime this week, and then a long run this weekend when my mother-in-law is going to be here to help watch Henry. That might be my first "non-Henry long run" in WEEKS! :)

10K less than 3 weeks away! Gotta hit it hard!